I think it
would be interesting if we listed in a concise form many of the ancient
and old theories proposed on why the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. We really
should call them hypotheses and not theories since most of them have not been
tested using the scientific method and are not backed with the amount of scientific
data to make them a theory. I will continue to use the word theory since
this is what the general public usually refers them as.

The first
part of this includes many old and unusual theories that go back even to ancient times. These should interest
us from a historical point of view and also shed some light on the current
theories. In many cases, a new current theory is just an old theory
brought out again, revised and updated. This article does not favor one
theory or another. It's purpose is to list
as many theories as possible and give some basic information about them.
It is not a detailed or exhaustive report but a short concise summary. Some of
these theories may sound trite, but at one time were accepted by many
people.

1)
BARRIERS AGAINST THE DESERT SANDS

M. Fialin de
Persigngy in 1845 expressed the opinion that the purpose of the pyramids were
to act as barriers against the sandy irruptions of the dessert in Egypt and
Nubia.

2) IMITATION
OF NOAH'S ARK OR TOWER OF BABEL

Thomas
Yeates in 1833 said "The Great Pyramid soon followed the Tower of Babel,
and had the same common origin. Whether it was not a copy of the
original Tower of Babel? And, moreover, whether the dimensions of these
structures were not originally taken from the Ark of Noah? The measures of the
Great Pyramid at the base do so approximate to the measures of the Ark
of Noah in ancient cubit measure, that I cannot scruple, however novel the
idea, to draw a comparison. "

3) FILTERING
RESERVOIRS

A Swedish
philosopher from the 1800's thought that the pyramids were simply contrivances
for purifying the water of the muddy Nile, which would pass through their
passages.

4) TO PLEASE
THE WOMEN

This one is
really unique. A Mr. Gable from the 19th century said that "it
appears not that the founders of them had any such laudable design of
transmitting to posterity specimens, as some had supposed; hence they appear
to have been erected for no geometrical purpose. They were erected by
those, who after their intermarriages with the daughters of men, became, not
only degenerate despisers of useful knowledge, but altogether abandoned to
luxury". Thus he felt they were built to please these women, who
had requested that the sons of God employ their leisure after that fashion.

5) THE QUEEN
OF SHEBA'S GIFTS

Mr. Wathen,
in 1842 said that "the offerings of the Queen of Sheba are now beheld in
the indestructible masses of the pyramids."

6) JOSEPH'S
GRANARIES

Benjamin of
Toledo, in the Middle Ages, was of the opinion that the Pharaoh had
stored a great quantity of wheat there. It was thought that purpose of
the Great Pyramid was to convert it into a granary in the time of
famine.

7) DISPLAY
OF ROYAL DESPOTISM

Aristotle
thought the priests had persuaded the king to undertake the work, in order to
find employment for the idle. This would divert them from mutinies and
rebellions. Pliny thought it was built so the Pharaoh could keep
his captives busy. Rev. E. B. Zincke in the 19th century had a practical
suggestion. "In those days, labor could not be bottled
up." Egypt was so fertile, and men's wants were then so few, that
surplus labor was available, and much food, from taxes in kind, accumulated in
royal hands. So, the pyramid was built to employ workers who had no job
and to use up the excess money in the treasury.

8)
PRESERVATION OF LEARNING FROM THE EXPECTED DELUGE

This theory
has been preserved by many early Arabian authors. It was revealed by the
antediluvian astrologers that a great flood was coming, and thus the pyramid
was built to preserve the memory of the then existing learning. Other
authors added that the pyramid was built to also preserve medicines, magic,
and talismans. There is an interesting story as told by Murtadi in 992
AD at Tihe, in Arabia. The work was translated in 1672 and this is the
story.

"There
was a king named Saurid, the son of Sahaloe, 300 years before the Deluge, who
dreamed one night that he saw the earth overturned with its inhabitants, the
men cast down on their faces, the stars falling out of the heavens, and
striking one against the other, and making horrid and dreadful cries as they
fell. He thereupon awoke much troubled. A year after he dreamed
again that he saw the fixed stars come down to the earth in the form of white
birds, which carried men away, and cast them between two great mountains,
which almost joined together and covered them; and then the bright, shining
stars became dark and were eclipsed. Next morning he ordered all the
princes of the priests, and magicians of all the provinces of Egypt, to meet
together; which they did to the number of 130 priest and soothsayers, with
whom he went and related to them his dream.

"Among
others, the priest Aclimon, who was the greatest of all, and resided
chiefly in the king's Court, said thus to him: - I myself had a dream about a
year ago which frightened me very much, and which I have not revealed to any
one. I dreamed, said the priest, that I was with your Majesty on
the top of the mountain of fire, which is in the midst of Emosos, and that I
saw the heaven sink down below its ordinary situation, so that it was near the
crown of our heads, covering and surrounding us, like a great basin turned
upside down; that the stars were intermingled among men in diverse figures;
that the people implored your Majesty's succor, and ran to you in multitudes
as their refuge; that you lifted up your hands above your head, and endeavored
to thrust back the heaven, and keep it from coming down so low; and that
I, seeing what your Majesty did, did also the same. While we were in
that posture, extremely affrighted, I thought we saw a certain part of heaven opening,
and a bright light coming out of it; that afterwards the sun rose out of the
same place, and we began to implore his assistance; whereupon he said thus to
us: "The heaven will return to its ordinary situation when I shall have performed
three hundred courses". I thereupon awaked extremely
affrighted."

"The
priest having thus spoken, the king commanded them to take the height of the
stars, and to consider what accident they portended. Whereupon they
declared that they promised first the Deluge, and after that fire. Then
he commanded pyramids should be built, that they might remove and secure in
them what was of most esteem in their treasuries, with the bodies of the
kings, and their wealth, and the aromatic roots which served them, and that
they should write their wisdom
upon them, that the violence of the water might not destroy it."

Another
early Arab historian adds to the story:
"And he filled them (the pyramids) with talismans, and with strange
things, and with riches and treasures and the like. He engraved in them
all things that were told him by wise men, as, also, all profound
sciences. The names of alakakirs, the uses and hurts of them, the
science of astrology and of arithmetic, of geometry and physics. All
these may be interpreted by him who knows their characters and language.
..."

As of this
day, nothing of the sort has been found in any of the Giza pyramids.
Some people think that these artifacts may eventually be found in a hidden
chamber or passage.

9) THE TOMB
OF THE KING

This theory
goes back to the 4th Century when Herodotus described the building of the
Great Pyramid to Philitis. He stated that "Cheops ordered Philitis
to prepare him a tomb." A Syrian writer of the ninth century
stated that "They are not granaries of Joseph as some say, but
mausoleums erected upon the tombs of ancient kings." Mariette Bey
is an advocate for the tomb theory. He states "with regard to the
use of which the pyramids were destined, it is to do violence to all that we
know of Egypt, to all that archeology teaches us of the monumental customs of
that country, to see them any other thing than tombs." Most books today on Egyptology will tell you that the Great Pyramid and in fact all the
pyramids in Egypt were built as tombs for the Pharaoh's. In fact,
The Great Pyramid was built as a tomb for the 4th Dynasty pharaoh, Cheops.
In other articles on this web site we discussed that it is very unlikely that
the Great Pyramid was built as a tomb for a pharaoh. Other pyramids,
yes, but not the Great Pyramid. The following will summarize the reasons
of those who do not accept the tomb theory. No mummies or any human
remains have been found in the Great Pyramid (and it is not likely that they
were removed by Tomb robbers). The Great Pyramid is the only pyramid
built with an ascending system of passages. All the other pyramids have
only a descending system with the pharaoh buried below. Also it is the only
pyramid with a Grand Gallery. What would be its purpose in a tomb?
There are no hieroglyphics, paintings, inscriptions, etc. found on the Great
Pyramid. Almost all the other pyramids, monuments, etc. in Egypt are
covered with inscriptions. It is unlikely that a King would have been buried
there with no inscriptions and paintings for his tomb. Thus maybe the
other pyramids were built as tombs, but it does not appear that the Great
Pyramid was built for that reason.

10) STANDARD
OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

The
Edinburgh Professor, Piazzi Smyth, is credited with the fatherhood of the idea
that the pyramid contains a standard of measure. Actually, this theory
was proposed by many others before him, but he was the one who developed this
theory with mathematical skill and gave it public appeal. In fact,
because of his books, the Great Pyramid received a popularity never realized
before. But what intensified the interest was his statement that this
standard was an ordinance from heaven - a gift from God.

It was
Smyth's conclusion that the sacred cubit used by the builders of the Great
Pyramid was the same length (25.025 British inches) as the one used by Moses
to construct the tabernacle and by Noah when he built his Ark, and because the
twenty-fifth part of this cubit was within a thousandth part of being the same
as a British inch, Smyth also concluded that the British had inherited this
sacred inch down through the ages.

Smyth upon
measuring the Coffin in the King's Chamber, concluded that it was a standard
of linear and cubic measurement. He observed that the coffin appeared to
be designed to remain at a constant temperature and barometric pressure, its
polished sides unaffected by decomposition over a period of thousands of
years, subject only to the vandalism of man. Smyth also confirmed the
value of Pi being built into the pyramids dimensions. Smyth made many
exact measurements of the pyramid, both inside and out. Smyth also
determined that the perimeter of the pyramid was 36524.2 Pyramid inches. This
would correspond to a year of 365.2 days. Thus, the Egyptians built the
value of the number of the number of days in a year into the Great
Pyramid. Smyth summed up his work as "the linear measurement
of the base of this colossal monument, viewed in the light of the
philosophical connection between time and space, has yielded a standard
measure of length which is more admirably and learnedly earth-commensurable
than anything which has ever yet entered into the mind of man to
conceive."

11) AN
ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY

As
the Tower of Babel was believed to have been erected for the purpose of
observing the heavens, so have pyramids been thought to have been raised with
a similar intention. The tops, it was said, would have been admirable
platforms; while the long passages, pointing, as they all did, toward the
pole, would have made admirable day-telescopes. It was observed by one
of Bonaparte's scientists that "It is very remarkable that the
opening of pyramids are all to the north. The passage seemed fitted for
an observatory, as it formed a true tube, at the mouth of which it would be
possible, to see the stars during the day."

Early Arab
historians had also stated that the Great Pyramid was built as an observatory
and it had contained reproductions of the celestial spheres. At the turn
of the century, British astronomer, Richard Proctor, found a reference in the
works of the Roman philosopher Proculus. Proculus had said that the
Great Pyramid was used as an observatory before its completion. Proctor
goes into a detailed analysis on how the Great Pyramid was used as an
observatory.

12)
CONNECTION WITH SIRIUS, THE DOG-STAR

Several
Arabian writers have seen a mystic correlation between the design of the
pyramid and the revolutions of Sirius, the judge-god of the dead.

Sirius was
known as Sothis by the Egyptians, thus the so called Sothic year, or
revolution of 1460 years. Some authors think Hermes, god of wisdom, was
Sirius, or Sothis. Hermes is Thoth, or Anubis, the deity presiding over
the dead, and yet being the originator of learning. Tradition among Arab
writers and revived among certain mystical Christian writers of the 19th
century, indicated Seth as the builder of the Great Pyramid. Seth , in
this case is probably Sothis, or Sirius.

No star was
so venerated in Egypt as Sirius, associated, as it was, with the time of the
annual overflow of the Nile, which the rising of the star foreshadowed.
The hieroglyphic for Sirius is, oddly enough, the triangular face of a
pyramid. Some 19th Century writers suppose that the pyramid may have
been dedicated to this venerated star or period. It was also believed
that the pyramid was used for observations of Sirius.

Murtadi, in
1584, said that the magical priest Saiouph made his abode, at the time of the
deluge, in the pyramid; which, he says "was a temple of the stars, where
there was a figure of the sun, and one of the moon, both of which spoke."
He mentions the great grandson of Noah, Bardesi, who, as priest, "applied
himself to the worship of the stars." He adds "It is reported that
he made the great laws, built the pyramids, and set up for idols the figures
of the stars."

13)
EMBLEM OF THE SUN OR SACRED FIRE

The shape of
the pyramids has suggested that of tongues of fire. According to
Jablonski, it appears as sunbeams streaming down from a point. Mr. Wild
of Zurich points out that there is tradition that the pyramids were erected to
the sun. The writer Syncellus informs us that Venephres built the
pyramids of Co-chone. Co-chone means house of Chon, the sun. Thus
it was a monument to the deity whose name it bore.